


Blessed are the forgetful.

by orphan_account



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-13
Updated: 2011-11-13
Packaged: 2017-10-26 03:07:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/277982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The letter has been folded and unfolded so many times there are creases through the words, printed plainly on white paper, that Quinn reads thrice before her mind makes sense of them.</p><p>“Rachel Berry has had Quinn Fabray erased from her memory. Please never mention their relationship to her again.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blessed are the forgetful.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [princeabubu](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=princeabubu).



> Here you go Jaime. Just so its not confusing; this fic has two timelines, one starts from the present day and goes forward (the numbered parts), and the other starts from the past and moves toward the present (the interludes). An Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind AU.

Quinn was awoken by the sound of a car door slamming somewhere down the street she lived on. Sunlight streamed through the blinds and she reached up and wiped sleep out of her eyes. She lay on one side of her double bed, as if she were sharing with someone, and frowned as she shifted to the center, yawned and stretched her arms and legs. _7:00AM_. She had been asleep for hours but it felt like minutes. She switched her alarm off before it could start ringing (she couldn’t even remember what her alarm _sounded_ like now, she hadn’t used it in what felt like years) and managed to get out of bed.

She’d been working at an Office just outside the City ever since she’d finished High School and a year out before starting college turned into two, which then turned into five. Which, if she was honest, she couldn’t quite remember _why_ she’d turned down the opportunity. She closed her eyes, but couldn’t fall asleep, something inside her telling her to start getting ready, to leave her house and not look back until the end of the day. She figured that being early would only win her favor with her Boss, so she got out of bed.

 _Interlude._

(Every day Rachel took a lunch break in the cafe across the road from the theatre. Quinn knew this because she knew Rachel’s habits more than she knew her own (too well, maybe). Once, a little over a year ago, Quinn had joined her there. The decor was still the same; signed pictures of actresses and actors lining the walls and waiters and waitresses wearing the exact same black trousers, white ruffled blouses.

Rachel sat at a table near the back of the cafe, away from the window. While she’s not completely _recognisable_ yet, she still gets stopped for autographs more than she’d like to when she’s eating lunch. Quinn knew she loved being stopped for autographs at the beginning; but fans were demanding, at least that was what she had told her once.

She weaved her way through the tables in the restaurant, her heart racing as she spotted the girl she hadn’t since ever since the night they’d broken up. It was like she hadn’t seen her for years with the way her stomach was twisting in anticipation. She’d brought her flowers -- gardenias, lillies, things that she knew meant a lot to Rachel -- which she hid behind her back, ready to pull out when she reached her table.

“Rachel,” she said, and Rachel looked up from her phone, setting it down on the table with a smile.

“Hello,” she said. “And what can I do for you?”

Quinn blinked. “Rachel, it’s me.”

Rachel shook her head, and then smiled. “I don’t know a _“me”_ , but its nice to meet you. Did you want an autograph?”

Quinn blinked. “Is this some kind of joke?”

Rachel frowned. “Aren’t you a fan?”

Quinn shook her head and took a step away from Rachel’s table. “It doesn’t matter. I came to the wrong.. uh, place.” And with that, she turned around and ran outside, her eyes blurred with tears and nothing but a sinking feeling in her stomach; had Rachel forgotten her? Was she joking around with her? She threw the flowers in a nearby garbage can and walked all the way back to the apartment they used to share, which felt altogether far more silent and far more lonely than it had done before.)

2.

Quinn snapped out of her thoughts. Even as her train began to pull into its stop she found herself backing away from the crowd that surged forward at its arrival. Almost with no will of her own she moved her feet - _step step step step_ \- up the stairs and over the bridge. Before she could even think of why she heard a whistle blow and found herself enveloped by the warmth of the inside of a train headed straight to the beach.

She couldn’t think why. She hadn’t been to a beach since she was a child.

 _Interlude._

(“Where is she?” Quinn asked as she pushed past Brittany and into the warmth of hers and Santana’s apartment.

“Where is who?” Brittany asked after her, but Quinn didn’t stop until she found Santana in the Kitchen drinking coffee like one of her oldest friends hadn’t just stormed into her apartment screaming to see her.

“Quinn,” Santana said carefully; she looked on edge, no matter how hard she pretended to be relaxed. Quinn recognized the way her nails tap tap tapped on the side of her coffee mug; she was nervous.

“Rachel,” Quinn said. “You’ve seen her, haven’t you?”

Santana blinked, and Quinn bit down on her lip, frustrated when she said; “I don’t know what you mean.”

“She’s different,” Quinn said. “I wanted to fix things- I was going to _apologize_ and she just looked at me like she didn’t know who I was- _what_?” Brittany kept her eyes firmly on the floor, and it only took a slight tilt of Santana’s head for Quinn’s eyes to be drawn to the stack of letters on the Kitchen table. “Did she _write_ to you?”

“She didn’t write, she-”

“Don’t, Britt,” said Santana, even though she sounded a little unsure.

“Don’t _what_?!” Quinn shouted, which made Brittany flinch.

“It’s the last letter, on the bottom of the pile,” she said simply, and Quinn walked over to the table, pushing the pile of letters to one side until she found the one she was looking for. She could feel Brittany and Santana’s eyes trained on her, but she didn’t look up.

The letter had been folded and unfolded so many times there were creases through the words, printed in black ink on white paper, that Quinn read them thrice before her mind could even make sense of them.

 **“Dear Mrs and Mrs Pierce,**

 **Rachel Berry has had Quinn Fabray erased from her memory. Please never mention their relationship to her ever again. Thank you.”** )

3.

Quinn called her Boss when she stepped off the train and found herself by the beach in the middle of February. “I’m sick,” she said, coughing, “I think I’m gonna have to take the day off. I’m sorry-”

“Take some time for some rest, Quinn,” her Boss said; her voice seemed very far away. She said goodbye and hung up the phone before she could be given away by the cold wind was blowing around the beach, sending sand and litter flying into the air.

She took shelter in a little cafe by the seaside; covered in Valentines decorations with nobody in sight except a couple of truck drivers and a small brunette hunched up at the table in the corner. Quinn took a seat, and found the girl looking up at her. After she’d ordered some -- fucking awful -- coffee, the girl moved from her seat, and instead of walking right past Quinn sat opposite her.

“Hi,” she said, “I’m Rachel.”

 _Interlude._

(It’s a little office downtown; not nearly big enough for Quinn to notice it on the street if she walked by, but she finds it when she’s looking for it. There was a redhead with her hair tied up in a bun at the front desk wearing what looked like a white Doctor’s coat. She looked up at Quinn as she walked over, smiled, and handed over an application form wordlessly.

“You need to fill this out before you go in Miss-” she looked at Quinn expectantly.

“Fabray,” Quinn said, “Quinn Fabray.”

“Take a seat,” the girl smiled. “Doctor Walker will see you soon.”

+

Doctor Walker was a man in his late fifties with a bald spot at the top of his head. Even so the receptionist still gave him a look of admiration as she lead Quinn through to his Office.

“I’m sorry you had to see this, Miss Fabray,” he said, sounding apologetic as he looked at the letter sent to Brittany and Santana that Quinn had pushed across the desk as soon as the receptionist had shut the door behind her.

“What did you do?” Quinn asked. “You can’t just... erase memories, can you?”

“I’m afraid we can, Miss Fabray,” Doctor Walker said. “Miss Berry was, suffice to say, quite... _unhappy_. We only gave her what she asked for.”

“Well can’t you.. reverse it?” Quinn asked.

Doctor Walker shook his head. “I’m afraid we can’t do that.” Quinn could feel a lump in her throat already, and when her eyes filled with tears Doctor Walker cleared his throat. She wiped at her eyes with her back of her hand. “If it would be useful to you, Miss Fabray, Lacuna inc. could do the same for you.”

Quinn swallowed. “You could?”

“We can start today,” Doctor Walker said, an odd half-smile on his face. “What I need you to do is to bring back everything that relates to Miss Berry; clothes, presents, photos, CDs, DVDs, cutlery, letters, _everything_. Can you do that?”

Quinn nodded. “I can do that.”

The problem was almost everything Quinn owned related to Rachel in some way. That was the thing. They’d started dating when they’d moved to the City straight out of high school, all wide-eyed and naive in a lot of ways. All it had taken was one night where they’d sat up talking until the sun had come up, and Quinn had looked into Rachel’s eyes, and their lips had touched for the first time. Rachel was nearly everywhere in Quinn’s apartment; some of her clothes were still in their wardrobe, the presents she’d given Quinn every valentines, birthday, christmas sat in various places around what used to be their apartment. She took the stuff to the office in a cab, because she couldn’t walk it all the way downtown and they began to map her mind, and a bunch of stuff she didn’t understand but wordlessly gave consent to. _I’m going to forget you, Rachel,_ she thought, bitter, _If you’re going to forget six years of our lives then so will I._

Doctor Walker gave her a pill when they were done, and said that she’d have her memory erased that night, as a very special and valued customer. She could see the way he looked at her, nervous as if she’d tell someone about the letter she hadn’t been supposed to see. It was dark when she left Lacuna inc. and the temperature seemed to have dropped ten degrees since she’d last been outside.

She took the pill with a gulp of water and barely made it to her bed when she fell straight to sleep; with the last conscious thing being crawling to her side of the bed, looking at the spot where Rachel used to sleep. The next thing she knew she was standing in their apartment; half-empty and not half as homely as it was now, right next to Rachel.

“We can always decorate,” Rachel said, looking at the white walls, then back at Quinn. “You still like it, don’t you?”

“I do,” Quinn found herself saying.

“I do?” Rachel asked, fluttering her eyelashes. “Does that mean we’re married, then?” Quinn knew she was supposed to laugh, knew the words she was supposed to say, but she couldn’t say them, and Rachel made a face. “What’s wrong?”

“I like this memory,” Quinn murmured.

“Keep it, then,” Rachel smiled at her.

“I can’t,” Quinn sighed. “I’m erasing you.”

Rachel licked her lips and paced up and down their doorway for a few moments before she grinned, big and wide, at Quinn. “Then take me somewhere I don’t belong. You can keep me there.”

Quinn blinked, watching as Rachel held out her hand. The memory had begun to get fuzzy at the edges when she took it, and they were gone.)

4.

“Quinn,” she said, blinking at Rachel. She had beautiful eyes; big and expressive, and they were a little wide as she heard Quinn’s name, flashing with something Quinn couldn’t quite recognize.

“That’s a pretty name,” Rachel said, looking down at her own mug of coffee. “Do you have a valentine, Quinn?”

Quinn swallowed. “What?”

“Do you?”

“No,” Quinn said.

Rachel smiled. “Me neither.” She reached into her handbag and pulled out a pen, scribbled her number down on Quinn’s napkin. “You should wish me a happy valentines day,” she said, and placed it in her hand, leaving before Quinn had a chance to say anything. Quinn frowned at the numbers, the strangely familiar writing, wondering how her day had gone from waking up early, to skipping work, to getting a girls number without even really talking to her. Its not like she made her sexuality _obvious_ , after all.

She didn’t get back until it was dark, and she switched the lights on in her bare apartment, took one look around and reached for her cell phone. It didn’t take much longer for her to start dialling.

“Rachel? It’s Quinn,” she said.

“Are you going to ask me to be your valentine, Quinn?” Rachel asked. She could practically hear the smile in her voice.

“Only if you want to,” Quinn said, before she could stop herself.

Rachel paused for a moment. “Okay,” she said. “We’re going to go for a drive, Quinn. Wear something warm.”

 _Interlude._

(When Quinn opened her eyes her fingers were still intertwined with Rachel’s. _A memory that doesn’t involve Rachel_ she thought, and found Rachel staring right at her, face cast half in shadow half in light.

“Where are we?” Rachel asked, looking around at the legs of the wooden table they found themselves under.

Quinn looked at the shoes on the feet of the boy practically kicking Rachel with the way he swung his legs back and forth. They were slightly scuffed hand-me-downs that Quinn recognized as Finn’s. She gasped, “This is.. the night my parents kicked me out.”

They sat in silence for a while as the Quinn from so many years before made small talk with her parents. Rachel reached out and traced a heart on Quinn’s thigh. She shivered.

“I loved you,” Rachel said, “You know that right?”

Quinn hears Finn excuse himself to the bathroom and waits until his footsteps have faded until she asks, “Then why did you do it?”

Rachel smiles sadly. “I can’t answer that, Quinn. I’m just your memory. I’m not really here.”

“We could have started again,” Quinn whispers, keeping as still as possible under the table. She can hear her mother and father talking about something inane and suddenly she feels like she’s floating. “They found me?”

“A memory of ours.” Rachel nods. “Our day at the beach.”

Quinn remembered it while she still could; it was a hot day, the hottest day of the year, and they’d driven down to the coast to make the most of it while the Rachel had a day off and Quinn was on paid vacation. They’d ran straight into the sea and laughed until they stopped shivering. It was something like a game of truth or dare, except for Quinn was always honest with Rachel, so every time it was dare or dare. “Try and float,” Rachel had suggested, and the two of them had ended up floating -- or trying to, at least -- on the surface of the ocean, deep blue and cold but for that day feeling quite warm, almost safe.

She can’t help but let her body float upwards and suddenly they were away from the night she was kicked out of her home, surrounded by deep blue looking at each other. Rachel leaned forward to kiss Quinn, little droplets of water dripping from her hair to her cheeks, and the memory is gone.)

5.

Quinn drove Rachel back in the morning; she’d already apologized for her own car being out of commission, and Rachel had shrugged. They hadn’t gone too far out of the City, and as soon as Rachel had sat in the car she’d fallen asleep, so Quinn drove as the sun rose on a new day, feeling altogether lighter than she’d felt in... years, probably.

Rachel woke up a few roads from her apartment. “Can I sleep at your place?” she asked.

“Sure,” Quinn said.

“I want to clean my teeth and check my mail, first,” Rachel said, and Quinn nodded.

Quinn couldn’t remember the last time she’d ever let someone in so quickly. The last relationships she could think of were with her high school boyfriends; who she hadn’t really let in at all. She pulled up outside Rachel’s apartment and waited for nearly twenty minutes, tapping her fingertips on the wheel of her car; very aware of the traffic warden checking cars just up the street.

“Hey,” Rachel said, opening the car door and stepping inside. “Sorry,” she smiled, holding a large file in her hands. “I got a mysterious package.”

“A mysterious package?” Quinn asked, curious, pulling away from the curb.

“Mind if I listen to it?” Rachel asked. “I got sent a CD with this file. I don’t know what its for. Have you ever heard of Lacuna inc?”

Quinn shook her head. “No. What is that?”

Rachel shrugged, took the CD out of its case and placed it inside the CD player in the car. It was silent for a moment, and then suddenly a man’s voice sounded out in the car.

“Your name is Miss Rachel Berry, is that correct?” the man asked.

“Yes,” said Rachel.

Quinn frowned, and looked over at Rachel. “What is this?”

“And who do you want to erase, Rachel?”

“I want to erase Quinn Fabray,” Rachel’s voice came out loud and clear from the speakers.

“What the hell?” Quinn asked, pulling up by the curb again, much to the distress of about a million pissed drivers in the middle of New York.

Rachel shook her head. “I have no idea, Quinn, I-”

“Why do you want to erase Quinn Fabray?” the man on the CD asked.

Rachel on the CD sniffed, as if she were crying. “I hate her,” she said darkly, “She wouldn’t forgive me because I-”

Quinn quickly pressed the eject button, leaving Rachel staring at her with her mouth open.

“Quinn, I don’t know what that was-”

“Save it,” Quinn said, unbuckling her seatbelt and stepping out of the car. “What kind of freak _does_ that?!”

Quinn could hear Rachel calling out her name as she walked down the street, but she didn’t turn around. All she could hear were the words going around her head from a girl she’d only met yesterday; _I hate her I hate her I hate her_.

 _Interlude._

(“We can’t keep running,” Quinn said. She hadn’t let go of Rachel’s hand, but every memory lead to a memory of Rachel; a memory that was promptly erased. She wasn’t the least bit out of breath, but she figured that was because she was inside her own mind, and even if she couldn’t find a memory that didn’t relate to Rachel, she could control at least a part of it.

“I know,” Rachel said, giving Quinn that look that said she was thinking of doing something.

“What?” Quinn asked.

“Do you think I could plant an idea in your head?” Rachel asked, her voice a little desperate. Quinn wondered how much of that was Rachel, and how much was her wanting Rachel to want her, to need her _that_ much.

“We could try,” Quinn gasped out. They were stood in the halls of McKinley and it was like time had stopped.

Rachel stepped closer to Quinn, leaned up and pressed her lips against Quinn’s ear. “Meet me in Montauk,” she whispered, and Quinn shivered.

“Okay,” Quinn said, as Rachel’s face began to blur.

It was the final memory, and even though she was certain she’d hold onto _Montauk_ she still found her eyes had filled with tears at the thought of losing Rachel forever. For a moment everything was suspended in the air; Quinn’s tears like raindrops in the space between the two of them, Rachel smiling, and for a second Quinn saw her face clearly. The curve of her nose, the colour of her eyes, the way her lips turned up when she smiled, the slight flush on her cheeks she must have gotten from trying to run through Quinn’s memories and -- suddenly where Rachel’s face had been was replaced with the darkness of deep sleep. She dreamt of nothing; not brown eyes, not a voice singing through the dark, not the feeling of sand beneath her toes. Nothing at all.)

6.

What Quinn didn’t expect was a similar file left at the front door of her apartment. She looked around, wondering if this was someones idea of a sick joke, and when she couldn’t find any hidden camera crews waiting to jump out at her she walked inside her apartment, leaving the door ajar.

The first thing that fell out of the file was the CD, blank, like Rachel’s had been, but undeniably hers. The second thing was a photograph that fluttered to the floor. Quinn crossed her apartment and placed the CD inside, pressing play before she knelt down and picked up the photograph, turned it over and stared.

“Your name is Miss Quinn Fabray, correct?”

“Yes,” Quinn said on the CD.

“And who would you like to erase, Miss Fabray?”

The photograph was of her and Rachel; they were a lot younger, maybe eighteen or nineteen, and Rachel’s bangs were cut neatly above her eyebrows, Quinn’s hair was only just down to her collarbone, worn curly with a bow-shaped clip in her hair.

“Rachel Berry,” she said, her voice cracking as she said the name.

It was a candid photograph, something they hadn’t even been aware was being taken, she assumed from the way they weren’t looking at the camera but at each other. They were smiling. Quinn couldn’t remember smiling like that for a long time. She lifted a shaking hand to her lips, and she cried silently as the CD played; detailing what had gone wrong with a girl she would never really remember. It was no real surprise when Quinn saw Rachel standing in the doorway, twenty minutes into the CD, her skin pale and her eyes wide.

 _“...I wanted her to live her dream, but I couldn’t cope with the attention she got; from girls, from boys. I snapped when she came home late one night, and...”_

“You don’t need to hear this,” Quinn said.

Rachel shook her head. “It’s okay.”

“I loved you,” Quinn said finally, when the CD stopped playing.

“We loved _each other_ ,” Rachel corrected her, and Quinn can’t bear to look into her eyes because she doesn’t see the girl she loved, the girl she talked about on the CD, all she can see is a girl she met at the beach on a cold February morning. A girl who, for all intents and purposes, was a stranger to her now.

“You didn’t love me,” Quinn said, an anger rising in her belly. “You just love yourself. You _erased_ me.”

“I didn’t-” Rachel ran a hand through her hair. It was longer than in the picture of the two of them Quinn had found in her file, which lay discarded on the floor. “Then what do we do?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Quinn said softly. “What’s the point if you’re just going to run off and do that again?”

Rachel frowned. Quinn could hear the sound of schoolchildren laughing on the street outside. She closed her eyes. “I was very upset, obviously, but I promise you I won’t do it-”

“-You don’t know that,” Quinn said darkly, and Rachel fell silent. “We were together for six years and before that we knew each other through high school. I don’t even remember you!”

“We’ll make new memories,” Rachel took a step forward, and Quinn could feel her breath tickling her cheeks.

“What if it all goes wrong?” Quinn asked, but she didn’t take a step backwards.

“Then it all goes wrong,” Rachel said simply.

Quinn blinked at Rachel, and began to laugh. Rachel joined in after a while and when they’d both calmed down they looked at each other, their cheeks a little red. “Just like that?”

“Just like that,” Rachel repeated. “Okay?”

Quinn took another step forward, reached out and took Rachel’s hands in her own. “Okay.”


End file.
